Professor Mike Colombo

Head of Department

Professor Mike Colombo has 20 years of university teaching experience, at both graduate and undergraduate levels, as well as 27 years of research experience. His current research interests are in neural mechanisms of visual processing, the neural mechanisms of learning and memory, and comparative animal cognition. He has authored over 50 journal articles and 1 book, and has received numerous awards for his teaching.

Mike received his undergraduate degree in Molecular Biology and Psychology from the University of Colorado. He received his PhD in 1989 from Rutgers University with a research emphasis on comparative animal cognition and neuroscience. Following his PhD, he was awarded an NIH Postdoctoral Fellowship to study the neural mechanisms of visual processing in monkeys at Princeton University. He joined the University of Otago in 1992 and was appointed Head of Department of Psychology in January 2014.